Ever After
by HarryPotterCat
Summary: "Little Lily uses people to get what she needs and then throws them away as easily as she could if they were merely objects. I don't think she means to: she doesn't do it to be malicious or to hurt people, it's just who she is and I doubt even she knows what she's doing." Lysander's view on Lily. Referenced Lily/Scorpius and Lily/Lorcan. Implied Lily/Lysander. Oneshot.


Little Lily uses people to get what she needs and then throws them away as easily as she could if they were merely objects. I don't think she means to: she doesn't do it to be malicious or to hurt people, it's just who she is and I doubt even she knows what she's doing.

Take her brothers, for example. Lily goes to Ted whenever she needs someone to help her, whenever she needs someone to sew her back together and tell her everything will be all right. Most of the time, she hardly speaks to him. She never writes to him and she says she doesn't need to. James provides a "big brother" figure in Lily's life and she goes to him when she needs to be cheered up. James can tease anybody about the littlest things, and I think that's what Lily's drawn to at times. When she's not with James, he hangs around with his seventh-year friends and she finds someone else to need. As for Albus, I'm never really sure what Lily needs from him: the two aren't all that close, though I expect that Albus's quiet nature and frequent visits to the library give Lily a chance to study. Like I said, she takes what she needs, and it isn't necessarily what she wants.

Last year, Lily had a long-term relationship with Scorpius Malfoy and was torn apart when he decided to end things; her relationship, however, allowed her to grow and decide who she really wants and without that, I don't think she'd be the same person. I think she needed to be with Scorpius to have the comfort of someone loving you irrevocably and to finally see that love is worthwhile, because before the two got together Lily used to breathe heavy sighs with Molly about how 'love doesn't exist' and how there's no point being with someone if it's just going to end eventually. Needless to say, she doesn't speak to Molly anymore. The two girls drifted apart at the beginning of Lily's relationship with Scorpius and, in all honesty, weren't that suited to each other's friendship in the first place.

I can't decide what my opinion is on Lily sleeping with Lorcan in order to live recklessly and be the girl she never dared to be. I can tell that that's why she did it: she's not the kind of person who sleeps around, but after Scorpius broke up with her she became really close to Lorcan and I found out through Dominique (incidentally, the person Lily uses for mindless gossip and light-hearted bitching) that the two had a friends-with-benefits companionship going on. It ended when Lily fell for someone else and she tossed Lorcan aside like Hugo does the Quaffle. Naturally, Lily blamed her separation from Lorcan on the fact that it wasn't what she wanted anymore, which I suppose is true, but in my opinion she just found something else to need. One wild crush on a boy in her Divination class later and she'd grown deeper as a person and scorned the petty attractions to people that her cousins displayed. Before that, you could say that Lily was fickle: flicking from Scorpius to Lorcan to a thousand other boys in a heartbeat; after she fell in and out of love with the boy in Divination, Lily stopped all of that and became much more sensible and guarded about who she gave her heart out to. I admire her for that, changing who she is for the better based on the people she weaves her life around, but I worry that one day she'll have no use for me or her other few permanent friends and will discard us and find someone better.

Lucy Weasley, Lily's cousin in the year below her, is a Slytherin. Lily's a Gryffindor, but often I've wondered whether she's really suited to this house or whether she'd flourish more dressed in emerald and having sleepovers with Lucy instead of with slightly meeker girls who bow down to Lily because they're afraid of losing her friendship. That's the one thing that Lucy – who is very sweet, don't get me wrong – doesn't give Lily: the pleasure of being needed. Lily knows that Lucy loves her and she knows that she can't have anywhere near as much fun with another friend as she can with her favourite cousin, but there's an element of mystery that surrounds Lucy that stops the two girls from getting tired of each other and prevents Lily from dropping her at a moment's notice when she finds out she doesn't need her anymore. I like the fact that there's at least one person in Lily's life who she'll always need. It keeps her grounded and gives her faith that there'll always be someone there for her, unconditionally, unlike Ted or Hugo, who she goes to for emergency help and nothing more.

As for me, well, I'm not entirely sure where I fit in. I think the only reason why I've never been with Lily is because who you want isn't necessarily who you need. Lily needed Scorpius and my brother to teach her important things about love, and she needed insane crushes to re-evaluate what she classes as 'suitable' for her. Yes, I know that I can be her everything and I know that I'm perfect for her; I am sick to death of people telling me this. What they don't seem to realise is that Lily, right now, doesn't _need_ happy endings and a rose garden with a white wooden fence. Lily's only seventeen; she doesn't know what she needs out of life yet and it would be completely wrong of me to try to mould her into needing me now, when I know full well that she'll come to need me in the future. And if she doesn't, so what? She'll find someone else that she needs and she'll finally be happy, and I'll serve some other purpose in her life. The only thing I can do is hope that she'll need me, because wanting something isn't enough. Wanting something doesn't come into it.

With Lily, if you don't need something, what's the point of having it in your life in the first place?


End file.
